Applicants' invention relates generally to telecommunication, and more particularly, to wireless communication systems, such as cellular and satellite radio systems, wherein signal strength measurements are performed.
In North America, digital communication and multiple access techniques such as TDMA are currently provided by a digital cellular radiotelephone system called the digital advanced mobile phone service (D-AMPS), some of the characteristics of which are specified in the interim standard TIA/EIA/IS-54-B, "Dual-Mode Mobile Station-Base Station Compatibility Standard", published by the Telecommunications Industry Association and Electronic Industries Association (TIA/EIA).
In a TDMA cellular radiotelephone system, each radio channel is divided into a series of time slots, each of which contains a burst of information from a data source, e.g., a digitally encoded portion of a voice conversation. The time slots are grouped into successive TDMA frames having a predetermined duration. The number of time slots in each TDMA frame is related to the number of different users that can simultaneously share the radio channel. If each slot in a TDMA frame is assigned to a different user, the duration of a TDMA frame is the minimum amount of time between successive time slots assigned to the same user.
The successive time slots assigned to the same user, which are usually not consecutive time slots on the radio carrier, constitute the user's digital traffic channel, which may be considered a logical channel assigned to the user. As described in more detail below, digital control channels (DCCHs) can also be provided for communicating control signals, and such a DCCH is a logical channel formed by a succession of usually non-consecutive time slots on the radio carrier.
In only one of many possible embodiments of a TDMA system as described above, the TIA/EIA/IS-54-B standard provided that each TDMA frame consists of six consecutive time slots and has a duration of 40 milliseconds (msec). Thus, each radio channel can carry from three to six DTCs (e.g., three to six telephone conversations), depending on the source rates of the speech coder/decoders (codecs) used to digitally encode the conversations. Such speech codecs can operate at either full-rate or half-rate. A full-rate DTC requires twice as many time slots in a given time period as a half-rate DTC, and in TIA/EIA/IS-54B, each full-rate DTC uses two slots of each TDMA frame, i.e., the first and fourth, second and fifth, or third and sixth of a TDMA frame's six slots. Each half-rate DTC uses one time slot of each TDMA frame. Double and triple rate communications can also be provided as illustrated in the table below.
______________________________________ Number of Slots Used Slots Rate ______________________________________ 1 1 half 2 1,4 full 4 1,4,2,5 double 6 1,4,2,5,3,6 triple ______________________________________
In cellular communication systems, users are allowed to move from one cell to the next during a call. To maintain call quality, the user is serviced from different base stations, depending on the base station(s) best able to support radiocommunications with that particular user. As a result, there are control mechanisms for handing off the call from one base station to the next, which mechanisms usually require switching from one communications channel to another.
Traditionally, these control mechanisms rely on information obtained from channel energy or signal strength measurements made at the base stations using a scanning receiver to determine when handoffs should be performed. Since some of the first cellular systems used FDMA access schemes, the scanning receiver scanned different frequencies and made signal strength measurements. Measurements from multiple base stations were then examined at a central control point in the radiocommunication network to determine when and where handoffs should occur. These measurements were made only for one link of the communications channel, i.e. the uplink from the user to the base station.
More recently, digital cellular systems have been deployed in which measurements are also made on the downlink, i.e. on transmissions from the base station to the user. These measurements are made by the user's equipment and communicated back to the base station via a control channel. These measurements are referred to as mobile-assisted handoff MAHO) measurements. MAHO measurements are economically feasible because these digital cellular systems are hybrid FDMA/TDMA. Thus, the mobile station would typically receive its downlink signal during one time slot and transmit its uplink signal during another time slot. However, each TDMA frame in these systems typically has more than two time slots, e.g., six or eight time slots per frame. These other time slots are typically allocated for usage as different communication channels as described above. Thus, a mobile station which is connected in this manner to an FDMA/TDMA system will be idle for several time slots during each frame. These idle time slots are available for making MAHO measurements. Thus, the same receiver hardware in the mobile station is used both for receiving the downlink signal and for making MAHO measurements.
In addition to voice or traffic channels, cellular radio communication systems also provide paging/access, or control, channels for carrying call-setup messages between base stations and mobile stations. For example, when in an idle state (i.e., switched on but not making or receiving a call), a mobile station tunes to and then regularly monitors a control channel (generally, the control channel of the cell in which the mobile station is located at that moment) and may receive or initiate a call through the corresponding base station. When moving between cells while in the idle state, the mobile station will eventually "lose" radio connection on the control channel of the "old" cell and tune to the control channel of the "new" cell. The initial tuning and subsequent re-tuning to control channels are both accomplished automatically by scanning all the available control channels at their known frequencies to find the "best" control channel, e.g., the most strongly received control channel. When a control channel with good reception quality is found, the mobile station remains tuned to this channel until the quality deteriorates again. In this way, mobile stations stay "in touch" with the system. In order to accommodate this functionality, mobile stations may also periodically measure the received signal strength of various control channels.
The radiocommunication systems described above, e.g., those specified by the TIA/EIA/IS-54B and TIA/EIA/IS-136 standards, are circuit-switched technology, which is a type of "connection-oriented" communication that establishes a physical call connection and maintains that connection for as long as the communicating end-systems have data to exchange. The direct connection of a circuit switch serves as an open pipeline, permitting the end-systems to use the circuit for whatever they deem appropriate. While circuit-switched data communication may be well suited to constant-bandwidth applications, it is relatively inefficient for low-bandwidth and "bursty" applications.
Packet-switched technology, which may be connection-oriented (e.g., X.25) or "connectionless" (e.g., the Internet Protocol, "IP"), does not require the set-up and tear-down of a physical connection, which is in marked contrast to circuit-switched technology. This increases the efficiency of a channel in handling relatively short, bursty, or interactive transactions by multiplexing many users. A connectionless packet-switched network distributes the routing functions to multiple routing sites, thereby avoiding possible traffic bottlenecks that could occur when using a central switching hub. Data is "packetized" with the appropriate end-system addressing and then transmitted in independent units along the data path. Intermediate systems, sometimes called "routers", stationed between the communicating end-systems make decisions about the most appropriate route to take on a per packet basis. Routing decisions are based on a number of characteristics, including: least-cost route or cost metric; capacity of the link; number of packets waiting for transmission; security requirements for the link; and intermediate system (node) operational status.
Packet transmission along a route that takes into consideration path metrics, as opposed to a single circuit set up, offers application and communications flexibility. It is also how most standard local area networks (LANs) and wide area networks (WANs) have evolved in the corporate environment. Packet switching is appropriate for data communications because many of the applications and devices used, such as keyboard terminals, are interactive and transmit data in bursts. Instead of a channel being idle while a user inputs more data into the terminal or pauses to think about a problem, packet switching interleaves multiple transmissions from several terminals onto the channel.
Packet data provides more network robustness due to path independence and the routers' ability to select alternative paths in the event of network node failure. Packet switching, therefore, allows for more efficient use of the network lines. Packet technology offers the option of billing the end user based on amount of data transmitted instead of connection time. If the end user's application has been designed to make efficient use of the air link, then the number of packets transmitted will be minimal. If each individual user's traffic is held to a minimum, then the service provider has effectively increased network capacity.
Packet networks, like the Internet or a corporate LAN, are integral parts of today's business and communications environments. As mobile computing becomes pervasive in these environments, wireless service providers such as those using TIA/EIA/IS-136 are best positioned to provide access to these networks. Nevertheless, the data services provided by or proposed for cellular systems are generally based on the circuit-switched mode of operation, using a dedicated radio channel for each active mobile user.
For either conventional "connection-oriented" voice or data radiocommunication or packet data radiocommunication, it may periodically be desirable for a mobile station to receive or transmit information at a rate which occupies its transceiver during all or many of the time slots available in a frame, e.g., double or triple rate communication described above. During these periods, the periodic signal strength measurements which have been requested, either for MAHO or cell reselection purposes, cannot be performed. Thus, techniques and mechanisms are necessary to provide the system with the requested signal strength information, while also accommodating high bandwidth communication.